A lobster cruise: The luckiest catch in Maine | CNN Travel

Portland, Maine (CNN) — Captain Tom Martin turns the handle that draws up the lobster trap sitting on the ocean floor 45 feet below the surface to see what he can see.

It’s a guessing game every time: Will it be big enough — but not too big — to keep? Will it be a pregnant female, which he can’t keep?

“It’s easy to get hooked on it,” Martin says. “I’ve been doing this for 33 years, and I still enjoy going out to pick up the traps and seeing what’s inside. It’s like playing a slot machine — you never know what’s going come up in the trap.”

Martin, the owner of Lucky Catch Cruises of out of Portland, Maine, will only catch a few lobsters on this fall day at traps he and his crew have lowered into Casco Bay after passing by the 1890s-era Spring Point Ledge Light and Fort Gorges, a Civil War-era fort. His traps are within view of Portland Head Light, a working lighthouse first lit in 1791.

When many people think of Maine, those iconic lobsters he’s pulling up in traps immediately come to mind.

There are endless ways to enjoy Maine’s favorite crustacean on a visit to the Pine Tree State, whether it’s the Lobster Shack at Two Lights, lobster done fancy at Eventide Oyster Co. or any of the dozens of lobster shacks along the coastline.

But it all comes back to the lobstermen and women who catch lobsters year-round, harvesting a record 130 million pounds of lobster worth $533 million in 2016, according to the Maine Department of Marine Resources.

Read the rest of this story and for video and more photos.

Our View: President Trump’s anti-opioid proposal falls far short of need | Portland Press Herald

Easing the grip of opioid addiction on our state and our country will take commitment, time, compassion, science-based policymaking and a lot of new federal money. President Trump’s declaration this week that the crisis is a public health emergency fails to bring these resources to bear against an epidemic that’s taking 142 American lives every day.

Trump has long promised to make the addiction crisis his focus. His pledge to take action is credited with helping put him over the top during the New Hampshire presidential primary, and he pressed the issue in Maine, too, telling a Bangor crowd just weeks before the election that “we will not only stop the drugs from pouring in, but we will help all of those people so seriously addicted get the assistance they need to unchain themselves.”

But although he vowed Thursday “to liberate our communities from this scourge of drug addiction,” the fine print in his plan doesn’t back up his promises.

The public health emergency is in effect for only 90 days. It unlocks an emergency fund currently worth only $57,000. And it will allow the federal government to waive some regulations, shift some existing grant money from HIV patients to those fighting addiction, and expand the use of telemedicine treatment.

So while the plan to fight an ongoing epidemic that killed over 64,000 Americans last year does take some commendable – if small – steps, it has a built-in expiration date. More importantly, and tellingly, it’s getting no new federal money – and the long-term funding forecast for federal anti-opioid efforts is similarly bleak.

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82-year-old man becomes oldest person to hike the entire Appalachian Trail | The Washington Post via the Bangor Daily News

There was a moment back in August when Dale “Grey Beard” Sanders considered giving up.

In the middle of the 100-Mile Wilderness in Maine, far from help, he was bleeding internally and having heart palpitations – not surprising considering that he was 50 or 60 years older than most of the people he had met on the Appalachian Trail.

Sanders called his wife in Bartlett, Tennessee, and she urged him to keep going. With a go-ahead from his doctors, he did, and on Thursday, Sanders, 82, officially became the oldest person to hike the entire 2,190-mile trail in a year.

He walked much of it alone, but for the last mile, ending at the Appalachian Trail Conservancy headquarters in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, Sanders was joined by friends, family and hikers – including a pair of dogs – he had met along the trail.

At the end of it, he danced a jig.

“I feel euphoric!” he said. “I keep thinking, is someone going to come out of the woodwork and say, ‘Uh-uh, I hiked it last year . . . and I was 83′ – but no one has stepped up and said that.”

“Someone said to me, ‘You can’t do it, the only way an old person’s going to be able to hike the Appalachian Trail is if they’ve hiked it before.’ That challenged me.”

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Your tiny house dream could be a scratch ticket away thanks to the Maine Lottery | Bangor Daily News

As the phenomena of tiny houses gains popularity, they seem to be popping up everywhere, including on the newest Maine State Lottery’s scratch ticket game.

Now through Dec. 9, for $5 anyone can buy a chance at winning their very own custom-built tiny house prize valued at $87,143 including state and federal taxes as part of the lottery’s “Tiny Homes, Big Wins” game.

Not a bad return on a $5 home investment. If you win, that is.

“The Maine Lottery is always looking for ways to make our games fun and exciting for players,” said Michael Boardman, director of the Maine Bureau of Alcoholic Beverages & Lottery Operations lottery division. “We were looking for something different that would be fun and relevant in today’s culture and we thought that a tiny home was a perfect fit.”

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Hiking in the San Joaquin River National Wildlife Refuge

I went for a hike last weekend at the San Joaquin River National Wildlife Refuge near Vernalis west of Modesto. It’s part of the San Luis NWR Complex, which includes the San Luis NWR, Merced NWR, San Joaquin River NWR, and Grasslands Wildlife Management Area. The “trail” is bit banal – very wide, very flat and appears to also serve as the utility road for refuge maintenance.

The trail is only 4 miles long and not much of a challenge or particularly interesting. Consumnes River Preserve north of Lodi is more interesting. Then again, the track at San Joaquin River NWR is a nature trail built with the average person in mind. Families with children might like it and the terrain won’t stress people who aren’t at peak fitness.

I did see some nature on the nature trail – egrets, herons, wood ducks of some kind (could have been the Aleutian Cackling geese, actually), small birds of various types, potato patch butterflies, dragonflies and other small creatures. I’ll probably return in the spring when things are a bit greener; the fall has made everything brown and dull green.

From the San Joaquin River website:

Established in 1987, the San Joaquin River National Wildlife Refuge is 7,000 acres in size and located in California’s Stanislaus County. The Refuge is situated where three major rivers (Tuolumne, Stanislaus and San Joaquin) join in the San Joaquin Valley, creating a mix of habitats that provide ideal conditions for high wildlife and plant diversity. The Refuge was initially established primarily to protect and manage habitat for the Aleutian cackling goose – a federally listed endangered species at that time. Today, the Refuge is managed with a focus on migratory birds and endangered species. The Refuge is part of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s National Wildlife Refuge System which consists of over 500 refuges and forms the largest network of public lands in the world managed principally for fish and wildlife.

#hike #gooutside #getoutdoors #getupandmove #hiking #outdoors#fitnesswalking #fitnessing #SanJoaquinRiverNWR

Here are a few more photos from the hike:

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